Ten Things in Valparaíso

1        1. I watched an elderly couple say goodbye to each other on the sidewalk. They shared the traditional cheek-kiss upon parting, and the woman stepped into the street. And very nearly got hit by a micro. (Micros are the brightly colored public busses. On the busier streets, the stream of micros is almost constant, like a school of giant, urgent fish. Once while trying to stand in a micro, I almost hit a seated woman in the face with my backpack, which was swinging wildly away from my shoulder as we made a 90-degree turn without decelerating.) This micro screeched to a stop so instantaneous I was sure the back wheels lost contact with the street, the front grate eleven inches probably from the old woman’s elbow. I stood frozen in horror next to her husband on the sidewalk. Without flinching or glancing at the bus, the woman completed on her slow, graceful jaywalk, her companion placidly watching.

2. This is a Colombian band that our Colombian friend Abril recommended. They’re really good.

3. When someone enters a room here, they greet each person individually with a cheek-kiss. Even if there are eleven people in the room and the person entering knows only a one of them. Cheek-kisses are strictly cheeks only, lips don’t make contact with skin. If they do, it’s weird and inappropriate.

4. The security guards on the metros are all beefy men dressed in blue military style suits who carry guns and handcuffs. I approached a couple of them the other day in Estación Bellavista and asked what their job was like. They said they are vigilantes privadas, private security for the metro company and that they walk the trains at all hours watching for ambulantes, or vagrants. I asked them what they thought about the musicians that play on the metros. They said it’s an annoyance and it’s not permitted. When I told them I liked the music, they said, “That’s because you’re extranjera (foreign). To you the music sounds good, but really they aren’t very talented.” One day I was forty-five minutes late to my class because I was enjoying the music so much that I missed my stop.

5. This is my mosaic lady with a giant bush. Not mine I guess but I really love her. She’s in the Paseo de los Sueños in Cerro Bellavista, the Promenade of Dreams. I don’t know what she’s doing, not dancing really but she’s thrilled about something enough to be naked and throwing her arms up, which I think is a good way to be.

6. On Friday I was exploring Cerro Playa Ancha with my friends Bridget, Jennie, and Kendall. Bridget noticed this graffiti: “Muerte al violador,” death to the rapist. We crossed the street so Bridget could take a photo of it. We continued walking, talking about the word violación, rape. Two men dressed in all black were walking toward us on the sidewalk. They shouted “Fuck me! Suck my dick!” in heavily accented English as they passed us by. I flipped them off. Bridget swore at them in Spanish.

7. This week I went to a Dunkin’ Donuts in the Ikea-Walmart equivalent in Viña del Mar called Jumbo. I hated that I felt so at home in that super-store but I did. Like I was right back in America, bathed in florescent light, wandering down aisles and aisles of things. My donut was a Boston Cream one but with manjar instead of cream. I was talking about it for a few days afterward.

8. I’m really enjoying my drawing class. The professor says things like “We’re collecting lines right now. Follow the line. Each line is a journey.” We all sit on the floor for the whole two hours and the room is warm due to the space heater for the naked model. Here’s a semi-blind contour drawing I did last week.

9.Every Saturday I do my laundry. No one has dryers here so I hang it on our makeshift clothesline on the balcony. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love standing in between my damp, translucent sheets and looking out over Valparaíso and the sea.

10. Every morning for breakfast we eat a giant bowl of oatmeal and sliced fruit (peaches, pears, apples, kiwi, oranges, prickly pear) and raisins and cornflakes and home-made strawberry marmalade. The raisins here are the size of nickels.